Project management tool

“A project is a piece of planned work or an activity that is finished over a period of time and intended to achieve a particular purpose”.

What is a project?

Put simply all projects involve change.  Whether the change is about operational issues such as new systems or moving forward with a new strategic direction. To make any of these changes happen then there often needs to be a project to ensure that goals are clear, everyone involved understands their role and the aims of the change are ultimately achieved.

We often think of projects being large scale, but they can also be quite small and discreet, and can be either formal or informal, but regardless of the size or nature of the project, understanding it’s a project will help you manage and navigate your way through it.

What is important to understand is that projects fall outside of the remit of the normal day to day process of an organisation. It will be unique in terms of its purpose, objectives or scale, it will have a definition of what it is, what it is looking to achieve and when it should end by.

Because they are outside of the day job, projects are “one-offs” and unique.  Most people will be able to identify a project their organisation has gone through, such as a whole office building move or the introduction of a new IT system. Once this has been achieved (the office has moved, or the IT system is being used) then it becomes part of the day-to-day processes.  Therefore, a project is temporary; it has a defined beginning and end in time.

What is project management?

Project management is undertaking a group of activities meant to accomplish specific goals.

1. The plan – put simply, project management is a way of making sure tasks are completed as planned to achieve the end goal
2. The task – Each task is likely to be completed at different times, by different people
3. The team – the group of people, each with their own expertise who have to get the task done. Whether a team of two or twenty, the way they’re managed is generally the same.

Remember one size doesn’t fit all. No matter how long you spend perfecting a process it may not be suitable for the next project. The important thing is to establish a methodology that can be adapted to any project.

All projects follow a series of stages – breaking a project down into smaller stages helps make sure nothing is missed or left out.

There are lots of different project management techniques available, however they tend to fall into two main types, traditional and non-traditional. The reality is you need to identify what works best for you and your team and the project you are working on. There is no right or wrong approach to take. It is up to you.

Why should you use project management?

1. Realistic project planning: The importance of project planning cannot be overstated. Too often, organisations overestimate how quickly they can achieve new ways of working or deliver a new service or underestimate the costs, or both – which is a likely reason for failure.
2. Clear focus and objectives: A lack of clear goals is a common reason for project failure. Project managers help organisations identify their priorities and define their project objectives.

When project management is left to the team to handle, the scope and objectives can easily get muddled. Unclear focus can lead to scope creep, missed deadlines, and overspending.

Plus, without a project manager to oversee the project plans and task breakdowns, many teams may not notice potential risk factors as they arise. If they don’t address evolving project risks, the team could end up prioritising the wrong tasks.

A good project manager keeps an eye on all these factors so that the team can focus on the right tasks at the right time and adapt as needed.

3. Strategic alignment: One of the most important reasons to use project management is to align the project with the strategic plans for the organisation including the integrated medium term plan (IMTP).

As project managers oversee the planning and execution of a project, they help ensure the project’s overall goals and its subsequent tasks and milestones all align with the IMTP.

4. Managed process: Project management is a proactive process that seeks to help the right people do the right tasks at the right time. Without a set project management method, many teams tend to work reactively—handling issues as they arise rather than proactively planning for known risks and setting project goals and parameters from the beginning.

Project managers help teams break down a project into more manageable pieces. By breaking the project into a clear process of assigned tasks, milestones, and deadlines, project managers can direct their teams more efficiently and react to issues with greater agility.

5. Quality control: Quality control is an essential component of project management. Your project could meet all parameters for time and budget, but if the quality standards that are defined when scoping the project are not met, the project will be deemed a failure.

Unfortunately, this is an all-too-easy trap to fall into. Teams are under a lot of pressure to finish a project on time and on budget. And this can lead to rushed work and poor delivery of the tasks to complete the project.

This is where the project manager is important.  They not only manage deadlines and objectives, but they also keep monitor well project tasks are undertaken. Project managers help outline deliverables and define their quality standards so that everyone knows exactly what they’re aiming for.

6. Reduced costs: Project management reduces project costs by improving efficiency, mitigating risks, and optimising resources.

Project principles when you first start

There are basic project principles to consider when you are first setting out with a project. Work your way through these questions every time you are thinking about starting a project:

• What do you want to achieve?
• What internal and external factors should you consider?
• Who should you engage with?
• What timescales will you be working to?
• What will be the benefits of the project?

The project life cycle

Regardless of what kind of project you’re planning, every project goes through the same stages. Although each project will require its own set of unique processes and tasks, they all follow a similar framework. There’s always a beginning, a middle, and an end. This is called the project lifecycle.

The project life cycle is a five-step framework designed to help project managers guide their projects successfully from start to finish. The purpose of the project life cycle is to create an easy-to-follow framework to guide projects.

The five phases are:

1. Conception / initiation
2. Planning
3. Execution
4. Audit monitoring and control
5. Closure / evaluation

Read more on common project management methodologies.

The first step in the project will be to set out what the project is, the ideas and context to explain the goals and objectives to be reached. 

Where does the idea come from?

Projects may be instigated from anywhere within the organisation, but typically, a project either drops out of the top-level strategic plans from Welsh Government, or a need for change is recognised from the teams on the ground delivering services.

People who carry out day to day business activities often come up with ideas for projects that promote practical change – they spot room for improvement.

If the suggestion for a project comes from those delivering services, then a proposal is usually made to management. This will involve selling the project to get buy in.

A formal proposal is used when a ‘business case’ is required – to outline the need for the project in terms of the benefits to the organisation and also highlight any consequences of not undertaking the project.

It’s important that the right people are involved at the project definition stage. If this doesn’t happen then mistakes can be made as to whether a project is really necessary (or desirable) and what the objectives should be. There are two main groups who should be involved in defining a project: the customer and the project sponsor.

Customer

The customer for a project is the individual or group who will benefit from the change. It is a project sponsor’s job to make sure that customer expectations and needs are understood and to align the expectations of the customers where they are at odds.

Project sponsor

The sponsor takes ownership of the project on behalf of an organisation and is held accountable for the success or otherwise of a project. They are usually a senior manager and may have suggested the project themselves or supported and promoted an idea from their team. The sponsor identifies the need for the project and what it should achieve.

There are two further groups of people who might also need to be involved.

Stakeholders

A stakeholder is anyone who has an interest in the success of the project, for example the members of a management team who approved the project budget. It is important that the sponsor fully understand the needs and wishes of the project stakeholders in order to keep everyone happy and make sure that the outcome of the project meets expectations.

Actively engaging a wide variety of people such as clinicians, administrative staff, patients and user groups will help you deliver your change project. A stakeholder analysis enables you to identify everyone who needs to be involved and assess how much time and resource to give to maintaining their involvement and commitment.

Carrying out stakeholder analysis as an early step in your change project can help you avoid conflict and delays caused by inadvertently failing to involve key people.  You will also need to keep your stakeholders updated throughout the course of the project.

Project steering group

With larger projects that impact several organisational departments, it is good practice to have a project steering group. The steering group is made up of the managers and partners responsible for the areas of the business affected and should meet at regular intervals to discuss all aspects of existing and potential projects.

Understanding who the customers are and their needs is the first step towards ensuring that projects actually deliver what is required. This should be the foundation on which the rest of the project process is based. A project manager should work closely with the project sponsor to make sure they fully understand their customers.

Before a project is proposed the sponsor needs to understand:

• What the customers do and how they operate
• Their goals and how they work
• The environment in which they operate

This is usually achieved by asking some questions, which will depend on the nature and extent of the project. However, the questions will usually fall into the same two groups:

• The customer’s current situation
• The customer’s needs and requirements

If the need for a project is identified (or a proposal accepted in more formal situations), a project brief is the next step.

The project brief

A project brief communicates the reason and approach for a project and the processes that will be used to manage it. It’s not as detailed as a project plan but is equally as important.

Stakeholders and the project team need a short and concise pitch to explain the project. The project brief is a way to deliver this information in a summary that will outline the objectives of the project, its scope, the main deliverables, milestones and the timeline.

A project brief or specification is a document that defines the project. The scale of a project will make a difference as to the amount of information that is needed. There are a number of essential components to the project brief.

Its purpose is to get the official go-ahead to scope and set up a project. This is usually put together by the project manager.

Alternatively, you can do a plan-on-a-page – which is just that –a single page overview of your plan, priorities, and direction.

The role of the project manager

The project manager will manage the day-to-day operational aspects of the project. They should ideally be involved from the definition stage. This is particularly important with smaller, less formal projects.

The areas of responsibility include:

• Detailed planning of the project
• Delivering the project
• Establishing project control and management systems
• Identifying and managing the people involved (the stakeholders)
• Selecting the project team
• Leading the project team
• Resolving project issues, problems and concerns
• Securing and using resources.

Project team

The project team are the core set of people who, under the project manager’s guidance, make the project happen. The team members should take responsibility for undertaking the various project activities.

Project constraints

All projects have constraints – factors which limit the project activities in some way. These generally fall into three areas: time, quality and cost. These three constraints define the scope of a project and are connected. So when a compromise is made on one, this will affect one or both of the others. Generally, one or more of the project constraints are non-negotiable, for example a deadline may have to be met. So, if a constraint is changed, for the scope of the project to remain the same, a compromise must be made on one or both of the others.

If one factor is changed, and it cannot be alleviated by adjusting one or both of the others, then the scope of the project will be affected; similarly, if the scope of the project changes, then the constraints will be affected.

View the business case template.

Read more about the business case.

Advice on the contents of the project brief.

View the plan on a page template.

View the stakeholder analysis and checklist template.

All the work you have done in writing the project brief and business case will provide an excellent base for the next stages of more detailed project plans

The project plan

When the project brief is agreed it’s time to start planning more thoroughly. As you add more detail to the project brief a project plan emerges.

To move forwards most projects follow a similar process to the one outlined below:

1. Expand on the project brief – add more detail to each section, firm up estimates, describe risk, change control and quality control processes in detail etc
2. Produce a first draft of a project plan document
3. Add in risks, issues and change control detail
4. Get the plan signed off by the project sponsor and any project steering group
5. Circulate the document to key stakeholders and where appropriate get them to sign it off too

The project plan document will become your touchstone for anything that happens in the project and it will be the responsibility of the project manager to keep it up to date.

Detailed project planning involves the scheduling of the activities and tasks that make up a project. This can be done in a number of different ways depending on the tools and techniques you are using, but it usually breaks down into two key stages:

Milestone plan: A milestone is a marker in a project that signifies a change or stage in development. They show key events and map forward movement in your project plan. Milestones act as signposts through the course of your project, helping ensure you stay on track. Without project milestone tracking, you’re just monitoring tasks and not necessarily following the right path in your project.

Detailed plan Your detailed project plan should look at the specific activities that need to take place to reach each milestone. This should enable you to produce a step-by-step plan which identifies resources, cost and duration of tasks, allocates tasks to team members and enable you to monitor project progress.

A good project plan can track both your milestones and the key activities and tasks.  It will give your project structure and your team direction. It provides a benchmark for performance and will help to achieve the project goal(s) within the given timescale.

Any project involves change, and any attempt to introduce change will come with a degree of risk. Project managers need to be aware of the potential risks at the planning stage and keep them under review.

Managing risks

Risk levels can change as progress is made and time goes by.  There are a number of tools and techniques you can use to help understand the potential risks associated with your project. One simple approach is a SWOT analysis, where you consider potential strength, weaknesses, opportunities and threats.

In order to understand how big a potential risk could be a project manager should assess each risk from two perspectives: the potential impact on the outcome of the project, and the likelihood of it actually happening. It is helpful to complete a risk matrix for this purpose.

Risks will be identified at the project definition stage, at the planning stage and throughout the project lifecycle. If they go unattended, they could become issues, so it is essential that you have a process for recording and managing risk. Your risk management process needs to address the following points:

• Identification
• Documentation
• Assignment
• Assessment
• Mitigation
• Recovery.

With all risks, things can be done to either prevent them, reduce their impact or make them less likely to happen. But this might require resources. A skilled project manager will work with their team to identify and mitigate risks accordingly. This is a crucial part of balancing the project constraints.

Communication in a project

Communication – the key to successful project management

If the project team does not know what their tasks are, or how to accomplish them, then the entire project will grind to a halt. If the project manager does not know what the project team are (aren’t) doing then they will be unable to monitor project progress. And if the project manager is uncertain of what the customer expects, then the project will not even get off the ground.

Therefore, maintaining open, regular and accurate channels of communication with all those involved in a project is vital to ensuring the smooth flow of instructions between the team and allows time to identify risks and changes.

A project manager must take time to develop a communication plan (to who, when, what, how), and then communicate it.

Read more information on assessment of risk.

Read more about the communications plan.

View the key work stage plan template.

View the risks and issues log and matrix template.

View the SWOT analysis template.

Read about New Service Developments Guidance for Engagement and Consultation. 

This is the stage where deliverables are developed and completed. It often feels like the “meat” of the project since a lot is happening during this time.

The Launch 

Before you launch your project, you want to make sure that the necessary controls and processes are in place. Otherwise, you may find that things affecting your project are out of your hands. In most projects there will be three key areas where you need to implement controls and processes:

• Communications
• Risks and issues
• Change control

How you launch your project will depend on the size of the project, how formal it is and the nature of your organisation.

Sometimes, a project presentation may be required, for example. Whatever size your project, it is a good idea to have a kick-off meeting.

Time management

Faced with multiple and competing priorities, how should a project manager organise themselves? The first step is to recognise that at any given time your tasks will vary in their importance and in their urgency.

Urgency and importance are often confused – but they are different and understanding that is crucial. Urgency is a measure of how quickly a task must be carried out, whereas importance is a measure of the value of a task, and therefore how much time it is worth spending on it.

In order to manage a project, a successful project manager should be monitoring and planning, but they are also leading the project team to ensure there is clarity and focus.

Change management

Changes occur during the life of every project and when multiple parties have an interest in the project, this is likely to happen more often. You can’t just accept every suggestion as you will quickly find that whilst a change might suit one stakeholder it will cause problems for another, and suddenly your project is drifting off course. That is why we need change control.

The changes you have to worry about most are those which directly affect the different aspects of the project definition – scope, budget, time, quality etc. It doesn’t matter how big or small your project is; when you are dealing with these types of change, you should follow a change control process.

View the change control log template.

Read more on the change control log.

Project management monitoring and controlling involves actively reviewing the status of your project as it proceeds, evaluating potential obstacles, and implementing necessary changes.

To keep the project on schedule and within budget you need to control it. This is an ongoing process throughout the whole lifecycle of the project. It is achieved by constant reference to the project plan and status reports.

Project monitoring

Things that should be monitored include

• Changes to the project brief
• Costs set against the budget and cash flow forecasts
• Project risks
• Quality of work carried out
• Resource schedules
• Time schedules.

You can gather information on these through formal and information communications. Progress reports from team members will be invaluable. Make sure you let your team members know what you want them to report on, how often and in how much detail. Action logs are a useful tool for logging the actions of a project

All of these issues can be identified and addressed through effective and regular project meetings.

Project status report

A project status report acts as a factual record of how the project is progressing and is a means of taking corrective action when necessary. The fundamental information you need to produce your report is based on your project plan. You may wish to present a highlight report at your meetings which set out the summary of the project status at regular intervals.

One of the roles of a project manager is to ensure that team members are working together to achieve the project aims. For people to meet a goal or objective, they need to understand exactly what it is they are supposed to achieve, and they need to possess the belief that they can achieve it.

The success of a project depends on all those involved. When people fail to achieve an expected outcome – either individually or as part of a team – it may be because of lack of commitment or time. But experience suggests that it is, more often, because there is a lack of clarity around the objective(s) or a lack of belief, or confidence, in the outcome.

View the action log template.

View the highlight report template.

Read more on project meetings.

View the project status report template.

Read more on the project status report.

The final stage of the project lifecycle is the closure.  A project should have a defined outcome and therefore an end.  The ending of the project will include a sign off, evaluation and handover so that it moves into day-to-day operations.

When coming to the end of your project it is important to continue monitoring right to the very end. If you don’t, you may experience what is known as project drift.

In signing off your project you will have gained agreement from all the relevant people of what completion means.  This means that you have finished all the work set out in your plan. If you complete all the work on your plan and your project isn’t finished, then there’s something missing from your plan. However, you should look out for loose ends.

Make a big deal about your final milestone to keep the momentum going right until sign-off.

Evaluation

The only way to learn from the experience of managing a project is to evaluate the process.

Once your project is complete, you should ask yourself what went well and what didn’t go so well and then look at the reasons why. Your findings should be documented so that they can be shared within the organisation.

Everybody associated with the project should be involved in the review to some degree as this learning process can lead to improved future performance.

Project handover

When the project is signed off, you may need to “hand it over” to colleagues, another part of the organisation or whoever will manage any day-to-day operations that arise.

In this case you will need to decide exactly what that person or team needs to know to successfully use or maintain the outcome of the project

It is impossible to judge the success of your project until the end user / team has measured the project benefits. It is usually only once the project’s end product has been in use for a while that this analysis can take place.

You will have agreed some critical success factors and some of these will be measurable straight away, while others will need some time. Make sure that you have set out a review process in your hand-over documents. It is vital that you review the success of your project on a longer timeframe to identify any mistakes or successes that haven’t yet come to light.

Hitting any deadlines and staying within the budget is all very well, but the real success of your project should be determined by the suitability of the end result, whether that is a system, a process change, an event, or a product.

View the post-project evaluation checklist template.